batting with plunked runners (2008 leaders)

January 24th, 2009 by pbr

Craig Biggio once said, on the subject of HBPs, “they don’t hurt as bad if you score”. Lucky for him he had Jeff Bagwell around to help him out with that, among others. But neither of them are still playing the game so it’s left to others to hit the ball after the ball has hit one of their teammates. In 2008, major league batters averaged .273 hits per at bat with a runner on first base, but if that batter got their by getting hit by a pitch, they batted .282. They only batted .274 when the guy on first got their on a single, and just .246 when they got there on an intentional walk. When there was a runner on any base who initially reached on an HBP, batters hit for a .278 average and slugged .465 in the 2008 season.

If you’re the kind of batter who gets hit by a lot of pitches, and you’d like to turn those plunks into runs, you might want to get yourself into a batting order with Vernon Wells behind you. Wells had 11 plate appearances in 2008 where there was at least one batter on base who had been hit by a pitch. The plunked runner was driven in for a run on 6 of those occasions. Wells hit 3 singles and 2 sacrifice flies to drive in plunked runners, and knocked in one more on a force out. Wells had the best success rate in the league for knocking in plunked base runners, at 54.5%.

Ryan Garko only knocked in 40% of the plunked runners on base when he stepped to the plate, but he had 20 such opportunities, playing for the frequently-plunked Cleveland Indians. The allowed him to drive in 8 runners who reached base on an HBP. Pat Burrell drove in the bruised base runner 7 times in 18 opportunities, and his teammate Ryan Howard drove in a plunked runner 6 times. But, Howard had a league high 35 plate appearance with at least one runner on base who had been hit by a pitch, so he was only successful in making those plunks hurt less, like Biggio said, 17.1% of the time.

In a lot of those plate appearance for Howard, it was Chase Utley who was on base after being plunked, but Utley wasn’t very helpful to other batters who got plunked in front of him. Utley had 20 plate appearances with a plunked runner on base, and didn’t drive in any of them. He batted .278 and was plunked once in those situations, but never put a ball in play that allowed his runner to score. Vlad Guerrero was similarly unhelpful, failing in all 14 opportunities to drive in the plunked runner, and batting .181 in the process.

As a team, the the Texas Rangers had the best success at driving in plunked base runners, doing so in 19% of the plate appearances they had in those situations. The Indians drove in 31 such base runners, but had a league high 187 plate appearances with a runner on base, which makes sense since they broke the post-1900 record for team HBPs in 2008. On the other end were the Cincinatti Reds, who had 77 plate appearances with a plunked runner on base, and only drove him in 6 times – just 7.8% of the time. That’s not so good.

The Florida Marlins led the league in slugging percentage with plunked runners on base at .717. Overall, they slugged .411 with runners on base, so having runner who got hit by pitches really helped them out. They led the league with 11 home runs with runners who had been plunked. On the other end, the Braves slugged .410 with runners on base in 2008, but when you narrow it down to specific instances where at least one of those base runners was plunked, they only slugged .308 with no home runs.

And here’s the full list of 2008 teams, sorted by batting average in situations with at least on plunked runner on base:

Team

AVG

SLG

AB

H

PA

HR

HBP

Rangers

.376

.624

93

35

105

6

0

Twins

.367

.531

49

18

56

1

0

Marlins

.340

.717

106

36

126

11

0

Blue Jays

.333

.429

105

35

124

1

1

Astros

.326

.535

86

28

94

5

2

Pirates

.323

.394

99

32

118

0

1

Giants

.323

.403

62

20

68

1

0

Orioles

.319

.551

69

22

80

3

0

Indians

.307

.497

153

47

187

6

7

Dodgers

.302

.460

63

19

77

3

2

Brewers

.297

.574

101

30

126

6

2

Cardinals

.296

.519

54

16

63

3

0

A’s

.295

.508

61

18

71

2

2

Diamondbacks

.282

.465

71

20

87

3

2

Cubs

.278

.486

72

20

85

3

2

Braves

.277

.308

65

18

75

0

0

Royals

.276

.500

76

21

81

4

1

Rockies

.274

.488

84

23

100

4

1

Mets

.270

.365

63

17

68

1

0

White Sox

.267

.395

86

23

103

2

1

Phillies

.267

.491

116

31

130

7

1

Padres

.263

.342

76

20

92

0

2

Red Sox

.259

.444

108

28

131

5

1

Angels

.256

.354

82

21

100

2

2

Mariners

.254

.339

59

15

64

1

0

Rays

.253

.421

95

24

122

4

3

Nationals

.250

.356

104

26

124

3

3

Yankees

.242

.425

120

29

133

4

1

Tigers

.241

.500

58

14

70

3

2

Reds

.215

.400

65

14

77

3

0

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